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Advice for Environmental Studies Students

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Requirements for an Environmental Studies Area of Concentration

Guidelines for Grant Applications to the Environmental Studies Program


Environmental Studies Program (ESP) Student Support

By definition environmental studies invoke a need to leave the library and classroom to observe the environment and how people affect it. These studies often require extra support. Students may wish to conduct costly or logistically complicated field research. They may need to interview old timers, or find a data set for a computer modeling project.

The Environmental Studies Program and its Coordinators exist, in large part, to support students with an interest in asking and answering questions about people's relationship to the environment.

Because student project needs are so varied, support takes many forms. ESP support has included advice, logistical support, work space, financial support, and assistance in locating funding, information, field sites, mentors and other resources.

How To Get Advice: Students can seek support by contacting any member of the Steering Committee or by coming over to the ESP office in the Carriage House. We'll do a lot of listening at first and then suggest courses, other students to talk to, faculty who may be able to help, community connections, and readings. Seek advice from your faculty advisor as well.

Logistical support: If the project is academic, the program may be able to provide transportation (van and/or canoe) and other equipment. There is more than one way to conduct research on an off-campus field site. One student completed a mangrove leaf litter study commuting on the bus to her South Lido study site.

Information: The program keeps a collection of maps and aerial photographs as well as many unpublished reports. Thus “gray literature,” combined with our informal network of local researchers and managers, provides access to issues and information that can't be found in LUIS.

Field sites: Looking for a place to study coastal plant communities, city planning, or hurricane evacuation? The program is familiar with most of southwest Florida and can suggest some possible sites, including areas studied by students in the past.

Mentors: We locate mentors in the community, people working in outdoor education, researchers, managers, planners, lawyers, organic gardeners and environmental activists. Some mentor relationships are brief, lasting for one class or ISP; others can result in opportunities for further study or employment.

Other venues for learning: In addition to helping with College-based activities, the program maintains information concerning off-campus study, graduate programs, and internships. Spend a semester planting trees in Mozambique, studying geography in Massachusetts, or organizing for environmental justice in Louisiana.

Financial support and work space for your project: The key to unlocking program financial support is successful completion of a Research Grant Proposal (RGP). Any New College student who needs support for a tutorial, ISP, senior project or other educational project can apply. While the guidelines run eight pages, proposals need only match the magnitude of support requested.

Get a copy of the guidelines for preparing research grant proposals from the program and talk through them with the program coordinators. Once your RGP is complete (submit six copies) the ESSC will consider your request and provide a response.


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